Meeting held on Monday 19th November 2018
Seven pleople were present. Five sent their apologies.
We discussed the recent protests of Extinction Rebellion against government inaction over environmental depredation. The protest related to increased species extinction (with 60% of invertebrates lost since 1970). We wondered whether this indicated a significant change in the seriousness such issues. Government policies remained almost totally blind to such concerns. We were aware that increasingly it is the younger generation who are prepared to take direct action. On the other hand we did not want to overlook some of the advantages in older people getting involved: we have more resources of time and money; more contacts and experience for communicating with ‘leaders’, less to lose from arrest.
We considered the significance of relatively small changes in behaviour (such as turning off the car engine when stationary, eating less meat, writing letters). Some kinds of changes (eg. house insulation, electric cars) are best achieved through policy; while others depend upon individual choices and changes. Sometimes personal changes occur before policy is changed; at others, policy change has the consequence of changing personal behaviour. We were struck by the fact that the ‘heroes’ of Extinction Rebellion’ were Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Mandela. We face a similarly urgent need for radical change as these earlier ‘heroes’.
We also discussed BREXIT. Here our conversation found less agreement. While the ‘Peoples Vote’ offered an attractive possibility, it was not clear exactly how this would/could happen. The Parliamentary system on the one hand, and referenda on the other, seemed equally unable to address the complexity of this problem. Much space had been given in the media to argument about who is likely to win or lose (May as PM, Tories as government, Brexit as a project), but almost no space for thinking about what kind of a country we want to be; what kind of democracy and economy we want to develop. Thus political developments are often led by ignorance and partisan attachments, rather than knowledge and thoughtfulness.
Our own state of ignorance and uncertainty reflects this wider context of confusion.
With this as the starting point, we held a straw poll on several possibilities we considered to take place before our next meeting for conversation on 21st January 2019. By that date we agreed that May would still be PM (nem con); a Brexit plan would be adopted (by 4 to 3); there would not be a peoples’ vote decided upon (nem con); Starmer’s bill to outlaw a ‘no deal’ outcome would be passed (by 3 to 2). We shall assess our predictions at our next meeting at on 21st Jan.